Theory of Gaminghttp://www.theoryofgaming.com
Theory of Gaming provides developers insight into what gamers want.Mon, 14 Nov 2016 11:30:17 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.8.149921641The Weekly Fetch Quest – November 14, 2016http://www.theoryofgaming.com/weekly-fetch-quest-november-14-2016/
http://www.theoryofgaming.com/weekly-fetch-quest-november-14-2016/#respondMon, 14 Nov 2016 11:30:17 +0000http://www.theoryofgaming.com/?p=4277Welcome to Theory of Gaming’s Weekly Fetch Quest, in which we adventure out into the world searching for the week’s most important news, and gather it all in one place,..

]]>Welcome to Theory of Gaming’s Weekly Fetch Quest, in which we adventure out into the world searching for the week’s most important news, and gather it all in one place, for your reading pleasure (and unlike most adventurers, we’ll fetch these items for you free of charge).

Every Monday, we’ll post the top stories from the previous week relating to the world of video games, along with some insights into why these are the news stories you should be reading. The Weekly Fetch Quest promises to be a brief look at these events that will get you caught up in no time at all.

To see more content from our site, or to submit a news story you would like to see covered in the Weekly Fetch Quest, follow us through our social media pages (Facebook, Twitter, Google+) or contact us directly.

As more titles suffer from rough launches, and the cost to obtain all exclusive content rises, gamers around the world have called for a halt to the practice of pre-ordering video games. The goal is to let publishers know that gamers are dissatisfied with the current state of AAA gaming, and a recent analysis of sales data from the UK suggests that publishers may have gotten the memo. With increasing frequency, publishers are projecting lower week-one sales for highly anticipated titles, and are instead committing to a multi-week advertising campaign to drive sales over a longer period of time. It’s a welcomed change for an industry that is so expensive that it often forces gamers to buy games used with an increasing frequency.

Another week, another botched PC release of a AAA titles, but this one stings more so than normal. Dishonored 2, developed by Arkane Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks, comes from a team that values PC gaming, yet their latest is a messy port of the console version, leaving thousands of gamers frustrated and unable to play their latest $60 purchase. Every time a game releases in such a poor state, we’re going to remind publishers and developers that delaying a title is far more preferable and beneficial in the long run.

Nintendo sent a shockwave of nostalgia through the gaming world when they announced the NES Classic, a smaller version of their original NES console, complete with the same old-school controllers and 30 classic NES titles. Despite some troublesome design choices (the controllers are not wireless and the cords are roughly two and a half feet long), the console sold out in minutes, in both retailer and online stores. Somehow, Nintendo was caught off guard by the popularity of the console, and is scrambling to produce more in time for the holidays. The shockingly low number of units produced to this point is seemingly another example of Nintendo being out of touch, and prompted IGN to ask, “Why does Nintendo treat its fans like this? (a question we ourselves have asked before)” The answer is probably because they know they can get away with it, even if that is a terrible reason, especially on the verge of launching a new console. At least they finally clarified the production status of the Wii U – maybe they can throw a few extra resources toward what should be one of the hottest gifts this holiday season?

After a successful launch of their VR headset, Sony hopes to keep the momentum up with the release of the Playstation 4 Pro, a slightly more powerful version of the Playstation 4 released in 2013. So far, the launch is off to a rocky start – reports indicate that certain titles, such as The Last of Us, actually run worse on the Pro than on the standard console. And then there’s Kotaku’s review of the console, in which they echo a sentiment we expressed when Sony and Microsoft announced new versions of their hardware – “it’s going to be a while before we know just what that added horsepower will be used for.” Even upon release, the benefits of this new hardware is unknown, likely leading to many gamers waiting for games to take advantage of the new horsepower or waiting for the inevitable price drop.

After a disappointing and slow (video game) news week, it’s encouraging to end on a positive note – Microsoft is opening up their preview program to all Xbox One users. The initiative, now known as the Xbox Insider Program, allows all users to test out new features to the Xbox One operating system before they go live for all users, allowing gamers to provide feedback directly to Microsoft. Not only does this open up communication between the industry and users, but it’s a sign that the industry is about to open up in ways previously thought impossible, and to the benefit of gamers everywhere.

]]>http://www.theoryofgaming.com/weekly-fetch-quest-november-14-2016/feed/04277Fallout 4: The Successor to Minecrafthttp://www.theoryofgaming.com/fallout-4-successor-minecraft/
http://www.theoryofgaming.com/fallout-4-successor-minecraft/#respondFri, 11 Nov 2016 13:30:41 +0000http://www.theoryofgaming.com/?p=4270To celebrate the one year anniversary of Fallout 4, we will be publishing a series of articles which examine various aspects of the most recent release from famed developer Bethesda..

]]>To celebrate the one year anniversary of Fallout 4, we will be publishing a series of articles which examine various aspects of the most recent release from famed developer Bethesda Softworks. This is the first part of that series, a look at the new settlement building mode.

Fallout 4 is a departure from previous entries, and settlement building is one of the biggest changes.

Over the past year, the narrative surrounding Fallout 4 is that it’s a great Bethesda game, but not a good Fallout game. Taking a look at the Steam pages for their past four titles, Fallout 4 is the only one to receive anything less than a review of “Very Positive,” and although Steam does list the cumulative reviews as “Mostly Positive,” recent reviews of the game are anything but. There are a variety of reasons for this but among the most prominent is settlement building – a polarizing feature that some cite as the point where Fallout 4 veered off the path of traditional Fallout games and into “Bethesda territory.” Whereas previous Fallout games were about conquering a violent and cruel post-apocalyptic world, Fallout 4 seems to be a radiation-filled take on The Sims. Needless to say, this feature, while embraced by many, is the foundation to the argument that Fallout 4 is not a Fallout game in spirit.

When Bethesda took the stage at E3 2015 to reveal Fallout 4, they spent a lengthy portion of their presentation showing off this new feature, which was not only a first for the Fallout franchise, but for Bethesda as a developer. In retrospect, this new feature shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise – there were signs in their previous title, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, that Bethesda was heading in this direction (the Hearthfire DLC focused solely on building a home with a decent amount of customization options). Even in Fallout 3, there were hints at larger aspirations (players could purchase homes and choose from a number of interior design), and they finally came to fruition.

So why did Bethesda take the risk of adding this mode to their latest game? Surely they knew it would generate some level of controversy – they was eager to mention how this mode was a first for the series, and being in the industry as long as they have, they had to know that adding something so different to such a beloved franchise is going to raise a few eyebrows. After planting what felt like a thousand tomato plants, and placing an equal number of turrets, for me the answer to that question started coming into focus. What Bethesda accomplished with settlement building is not only a logical progression for their style of games, but it’s also a potential answer to one of gaming’s biggest unanswered questions – what will Microsoft do with Minecraft 2?

First Thing’s First – Punch That Tree

Tree punching – a common sight for players starting a new map in Minecraft.

In the early days of Theory of Gaming, we published an article on the fundamental differences between sandbox games and open world games. In short, sandbox games focus on the gathering of elements and crafting them into objects, with player creativity often being the sole reason to pursue these titles for any length of time; story is a very small priority. In open world games, story and gameplay are primary focuses, and player creativity is often relegated to RPG mechanics or customization of a weapon or vehicle. Sandboxes are seemingly infinite in nature, but outside of creativity offer little value to gamers, whereas open world games are finite, but provide motivation in the form of narrative and action.

As a fan of Minecraft, I’ve long lost count of how many sleepless nights I spent exploring caves, creating vertical farms and floating islands. Minecraft tapped into the part of my brain that enjoys creative expression, and along with millions of others I found immense joy in the simple task of gathering up cubes of wood and stone and turning them into blocky works of art. This is the function of sandbox games, and although there are plenty of other examples beyond Minecraft, all of which add their own unique twist to the genre, they all have one thing in common – the player’s creations are little more than digital dioramas, static models that serve no practical purpose.

In one of my many Minecraft maps, I trekked a ridiculous distance from the settlement I called my home base, in search of the perfect locale to house my next project. I eventually found it – an expanse of desert, relatively flat, lacking in water, dirt to grow food and animals to hunt. It felt isolated, as if I were standing at the edge of the world. The perfect place for a mega structure, an entire ecosystem and city located inside one building. On the outside, it would appear to be nothing more than a cube of wood, strangely floating off the ground just high enough so Creepers couldn’t climb inside and destroy hours of progress. But on the inside would be a maze of wonder – an ocean located on the top floor, deep enough for squids and fish to call home. Turn down a hall and suddenly you’re in a forest filled with evergreens, with a forest of birch trees a level below. Open a door and you could find something as crazy as a volcano or as plain as a bedroom. The cellar would be stocked with a seemingly endless amount of every item in the game, and all of it would be protected by impenetrable defenses. It was my own fortress of solitude.

After planting what felt like a thousand trees, I paused to admire my work. As I surveyed the land, planning the next part of this tremendous undertaking, questions hit me: What am I going to do with this? What function does any of this serve? Outside the mechanics and systems of the game, the function it served was an outlet for creativity, but inside the game, this gigantic world within a cube would be just as practical as the procedurally generated mountain range I had to cross to get to the desert. In other words, it wouldn’t be practical, it would serve no function. I could share it with fellow fans, and maybe some would find the project impressive, but there’s little more to do with it beyond observation.

This is the issue with Minecraft and sandbox games in general – despite attempts to add traditional gameplay elements and story, the title is, at its heart, virtual Legos. That’s not a bad thing, but eventually I wanted more meaning from my creations, a practical purpose, functionality, a benefit that tapped into a different part of my brain, the part that likes to lose itself in an immersive world, where actions have consequences and building structures can provide more than a creative outlet.

The desert fortress of solitude project was left unfinished sometime in 2014. That I was still consistently playing a game I originally purchased in late 2011 is a testament to the power of sandbox games, and the number of active players, even today, is a testament to the need for creative outlets and how video games are uniquely suited to provide those avenues. But I found I could no longer play Minecraft without wistfully dreaming about some sort of story, or better yet a set of mechanics that would add purpose to my creations. This question stuck with me even after I left Minecraft, and when Microsoft purchased the property in September of 2014, I wondered if they had any answers. After all, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that Microsoft would like to one day see Minecraft 2, and it would need to be more than a giant sandbox if players are to be convinced that it’s worth their money. But they’ve been beaten to the punch – before there’s even been discussion of Minecraft 2, Bethesda created the perfect sequel, claiming their place among the top of the sandbox ladder, and in the most unlikely of places.

Workshop Mode

Settlements offer more than creative expression – they serve a practical purpose.

After E3 2015 and before the game’s release, many players were intrigued by the promise of settlement building, and Bethesda happily showed off this new feature. It was internally consistent with the world of Fallout – after some length of time, it’s only natural that humanity would begin to rebuild itself, and what better way to demonstrate that than to let the player be at the epicenter of the effort. While Bethesda maintained that settlement building would be entirely optional (just as following the main story in their games is optional), the focus paid to settlement building suggests that, for Bethesda, this is no mere mini-game or side-quest, but a big portion of the game. Out of the six pieces of DLC released for Fallout 4, three of them focus solely on settlement building, adding in new items and increased functionality, and the other three pieces of content also feature plenty of enhancements to this mode.

With settlement building, Bethesda did more than simply enable players to purchase a home to store all of their loot and ammo – settlement building serves a practical purpose with a direct impact on gameplay. Throughout the world of the Commonwealth, players find pieces of land on which they can develop settlements, and as long as the player has the resources, these settlements can feature all sorts of buildings, machines and strange creations. A large aspect of settlement building is the collection of resources, which means Fallout 4 has turned into something akin to a hoarding simulator. Nearly every piece of junk or scrap found in the wastes can be picked up, brought back to a settlement, broken down into component parts, and remade into something useful. Beds, kitchens, crafting tools, weapon or armor mods, stores to sell goods, or even health care instruments that remove all radiation damage from the player or give them a temporary boost to their eyesight are possible to create in settlements; while some objects offer little customization, players are free to craft buildings and entire towns as they see fit. In short, the settlement building mode that made its debut in Fallout 4 is a sandbox game set inside an open world game. But it’s also something a bit more.

Bethesda should be given credit for how seamlessly settlement building fits into the world of Fallout 4. It’s an activity on par with exploration or completing quests – players can engage in it on a whim, and immerse themselves in it for as long as they like before dropping it and diving into exploration or the main story. Most importantly, this mode solves the one glaring problem of traditional sandbox games – creations are no longer static images to merely gaze upon, but practical tools that help players rule over the city of Boston. If players need resources, such as caps to buy goods, water or food to heal, or a place to store their loot, they can create items at settlements that provide these. They can build a farm, but farms need to be tended to, which means they need to set up a recruitment beacon that guides settlers looking for a home to the new village. This means they need water, a roof over their heads and jobs to keep them busy. This is where stores come in, and not only do players get a cut of their profits, but they can buy items from them that might otherwise be difficult to come by. Settlements also allow players to do more with loot than hoard it – they can build manufacturing machines which can produce all sorts of items, from food and clothes to weapons and ammo.

Eventually, players will generate enough resources that raiders and other hostile foes will try to take these essential items by force. Now the form of settlements matter, because they not only have to serve the function of being a home to NPCs, but they must also be constructed in a way that properly defends them with turrets and traps. Settlers should have more than a wimpy pipe pistol to fend off enemies, and a thin jacket to protect them from danger, meaning manufacturing items does more than benefit players – it benefits their settlers, who in turn work the land and sell items that in turn prepares players when they venture out into the wastes. Settlement building isn’t a distraction – it’s an essential component of the Fallout 4 experience. It’s more than just a sandbox game – it’s the next evolutionary step in the genre; a way to give the player’s creativity a practical purpose and function, one that impacts an immersive setting, characters and story.

A Gamble That Hit Jackpot

That such a massive and complex mode fits organically within an already vast and complicated world is a success in and of itself, but with settlement building, Bethesda conquered two genres at the same time. The long-time issue I had with Minecraft, that my creations meant nothing and served no purpose, has been rectified. Not only do I have a creative outlet to engage in when I choose to, but I can also use my creations to enhance the more traditional aspects of the game. This is why the mode is such a defining feature of Fallout 4, and since it’s a radical departure from previous entries, it’s bound to stir up some hot takes and hyperbolic proclamations. The inclusion of this mode may have puzzled many longtime fans, but the reason Bethesda focused so much time and energy into it is because it’s the next logical step for their brand of games, and they were right to do so – it innovates both the open world and sandbox genres in a way few games have before.

]]>http://www.theoryofgaming.com/fallout-4-successor-minecraft/feed/04270The Weekly Fetch Quest – November 7, 2016http://www.theoryofgaming.com/the-weekly-fetch-quest-november-7-2016/
http://www.theoryofgaming.com/the-weekly-fetch-quest-november-7-2016/#respondMon, 07 Nov 2016 13:30:31 +0000http://www.theoryofgaming.com/?p=4264Welcome to Theory of Gaming’s Weekly Fetch Quest, in which we adventure out into the world searching for the week’s most important news, and gather it all in one place,..

]]>Welcome to Theory of Gaming’s Weekly Fetch Quest, in which we adventure out into the world searching for the week’s most important news, and gather it all in one place, for your reading pleasure (and unlike most adventurers, we’ll fetch these items for you free of charge).

Every Monday, we’ll post the top stories from the previous week relating to the world of video games, along with some insights into why these are the news stories you should be reading. The Weekly Fetch Quest promises to be a brief look at these events that will get you caught up in no time at all.

To see more content from our site, or to submit a news story you would like to see covered in the Weekly Fetch Quest, follow us through our social media pages (Facebook, Twitter, Google+) or contact us directly.

The movement for the gaming industry to embrace cross-platform play has been growing for years, and finally picked up some momentum this summer with the announcement that both Rocket League and Minecraft would feature cross-platform play in some capacity. Seemingly missing out on that news was Activision, who announced that the highly anticipated Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare would split the player base up on PC between those who purchased the game through Steam and those who took advantage of a pre-release sale and purchased the title through the Windows 10 store. This is a first for the series, and it’s an unfortunate setback considering the ever growing hurdles the gaming industry throws at players.

In a move that seems obvious in hindsight, Steam is now requiring that developers and publishers use actual in-game footage to promote their titles on their respective Steam pages, allowing players to get a more accurate look of what a title offers before making a potential purchase. The timing of this suggests that the policy was put in place due to the overwhelming negative feedback No Man’s Sky received on Steam, and the confusion surrounding Steam’s refund policy. It’s yet another example of how Hello Games, developer of No Man’s Sky, botched the dissemination of information pre- and post-release, and how important it is for the entire industry to change the way games are discussed.

As BlizzCon 2016 wrapped, fans were left with an avalanche of news for seemingly every property Blizzard Entertainment has ever worked on. Lost amidst the excitement and post-convention reactions was the news that Blizzard would be creating their own pro-gaming league for their hugely popular title Overwatch. The news shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, seeing as how everyone dedicated big portions of their E3 2016 press conferences to eSports and pro-gaming. Still, it will be interesting to see if Blizzard’s attempt takes off, as they’re taking a more traditional approach to team-based competition, by building teams based on geographical location, much like other major professional sports.

It’s not uncommon for a hardware manufacturer to cease production of their previous home console before the release of a new one, but what is rare is the amount of confusion surrounding whether or not Nintendo is actually doing that with the Wii U. The company insists that is not the case, despite numerous reports suggesting otherwise. The lack of clear communication from Nintendo does not inspire confidence, something they desperately need as they undertake one of the biggest gambles in their history.

]]>http://www.theoryofgaming.com/the-weekly-fetch-quest-november-7-2016/feed/04264Scary Monsters, and How To Create Themhttp://www.theoryofgaming.com/scary-monsters-create/
http://www.theoryofgaming.com/scary-monsters-create/#respondFri, 04 Nov 2016 12:30:32 +0000http://www.theoryofgaming.com/?p=4256My love for monster films started when I was a child. It began for the most obvious of reasons – as an eight year old, I thought it was totally..

Godzilla is not only a major influence for the author, but also one of the most iconic monsters in history.

My love for monster films started when I was a child. It began for the most obvious of reasons – as an eight year old, I thought it was totally awesome to see Godzilla swing and stomp his way across Tokyo, demolishing everything in his path. But my love for the genre grew when I began to see how monster movies could tap into some of the deepest fears many of us share. To this day, one of my favorite films is Jaws, a monster movie in which the monster is nothing more than a shark and the violence and gore are toned down (by today’s standards). Yet it’s such an effective film because it forces us to accept that, in the deep ocean water, we don’t know what’s lurking out there, and when we do meet the creatures of the deep, they’re often more dangerous than us. We’re not at the top of the food chain anymore, we’re at the bottom, looking up.

This says nothing of the cautionary tale that Jaws delivers – the deaths of beachgoers and the panic that grips the small town of Amity Island were all preventable, if they had heeded to reason and stayed out of the water. But greed won over reason, and pushed the entire town onto the verge of economic and psychological collapse.

That is the power monsters have over a narrative, and it’s no different in video games. Even though they are often reduced to mindless fodder for the player to shoot through, the same rules that apply to movie monster design also apply here, and the results can be memorable or disastrous, depending on whether or not the developers understand what makes a great monster in the first place.

The Six Rules

Despite being a typical shark, the monster of Jaws is one of the most effective in modern cinema, because it follows a list of key rules and guidelines.

Monsters have long been a part of human communication – we’ve used them throughout our history, in stories and in religious texts, to confer danger, warnings, and generally to thrill and excite the listener. Throughout this time the standard for the look and function of monsters has changed, but with the advent of film, the contemporary monster design has been clearly defined. As such, the below rules and examples have a contemporary angle in mind, although as we’ll see, developers can still draw on monster design from the Lovecraftian era while still adhering to contemporary rules.

There are a number of sources across the internet explaining what goes into the creation of making an effective monster. Philip Athans, on his blog Fantasy Author’s Handbook wrote a post titled “What Makes a Monster Scary?” in which he lays the groundwork for how to design a monster, offering solid advice for authors and filmmakers alike. Same for an interview with Neville Page, a special effects designer who has worked alongside J.J. Abrams for some of his most ambitious projects, who takes the role of creating monsters very serious. These, along with many other sources, help us define a list of six rules of good monster design. These rules are by no means definitive, and of course exceptions can always be made, but these are solid guidelines that most contemporary monsters should follow:

The appearance of the monster must be relatable. Good monsters will feature human-like qualities, or exhibit a natural look, meaning they mimic the look, size or movement of an animal.

Their form or function plays on a common fear people hold, specifically a phobia. Tapping into phobias is a great way to connect to an audience, as phobias often tend to elicit a strong emotional response, and a monster embodying that fear will, in turn, elicit a strong reaction.

They reveal their true form or functions slowly. Some of the most enduring monsters are werewolves and vampires, who at first appear to be normal humans, but eventually unveil their true selves. Done at the start, it can overwhelm the viewer and lose its impact.

Monsters should have unknown or difficult to determine motives, if any at all. Giving a monster a backstory and motive can humanize them, something that should generally be avoided, and by removing motivation, the viewer can fill in the gaps with their imagination, projecting their own fears onto the character. Take, for example, two portrayals of slasher Michael Myers, from the original film Halloween and the 2007 remake. In the original, his motives are unclear – he is merely a menacing figure emerging from the dark, killing indiscriminately (his motives and history are explored in later sequels). This creates a tremendous amount of fear, since humans try to make sense of anything they see or experience, and senseless murder by definition defies that expectation. But in the 2007 remake, the character of Michael Myers is shown as a child, and his mental instability is explained in great detail. He becomes a tragic figure early on, and while that makes him more relatable, it also means that by the time he begins stalking and killing people, the tension created by the unknown has evaporated, the monster losing all of his bite.

Monsters should have an appropriate scale, meaning that they should closely resemble in size the thing they are mimicking. This is why you never see twenty-feet tall zombies, and why werepups are a horrific idea.

The look and tone of the monster should match the look and tone of the story it’s in. If a monster is meant to revolt and disgust, it should appear in a horror film. If a story is far more light-hearted and even comedic, the monster should reflect this.

There are, of course, variations to these rules, but these are the basic elements most would agree upon, and there are plenty of examples of video game monsters that adhere to these rules.

The Horror of the Plaga, the Threat of the Colossi

The monster design in Resident Evil 4 provides some of the greatest examples in contemporary gaming.

Trying to select two games to highlight for their creative monster design proved to be a far more difficult task than I imagined. I went to the obvious titles first – the monsters in The Witcher series are incredibly varied and detailed, and the Husks from Mass Effect fit most of the rules outlined above. But there are two games that stand out when it comes to monster design – Resident Evil 4 and Shadow of the Colossus.

When it released in 2005, Resident Evil 4 became the new standard for survival horror. From the intense action, to quick-time events that surprised gamers and felt like natural elements of the gameplay, this was the shot in the arm the franchise and genre needed. Years later, the game stands out because of its expert use of monster design. The game slowly rolls out its monstrosities, starting off with humans who appear normal on the surface, but are infected with a parasite called Plaga, which turns them into mindless murdering machines. This decision by developer Capcom allows them to slowly introduce the concept of the Plaga, which can cause horrific mutations, in a way that doesn’t overwhelm or remove surprises for later in the game. It also makes the villains relatable – at the start, they look like people, seemingly living a normal life, but they hide a disturbing secret.

Of course, the monsters become more outlandish as the game progresses, but they stick closely to the above rules, creating memorable moments like the boss fight with the creature named Del Lago, a giant, mutated alligator residing in a lake.

As a monster, Del Lago works for two reasons – it closely resembles the natural world, but with clear deformities, and it fits within the tone of the game. The function of the Plaga parasite (to mutate lifeforms) has clearly been established, and the scene, in which the player character fends off the creature with a harpoon in a tiny (and easily overturned) boat, taps into some of the same fears Jaws did decades earlier. It fits the horror theme perfectly, as does the most notable monster from the title, the Chainsaw Man, a large man with a sack over his head that runs screaming at the player. A clear nod to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and another effective use of monster design – he is clearly human, but his face is obscured, leading the audience to instinctively distrust him before he even revs up his chainsaw.

That said, great monsters don’t necessarily need to be vile and grotesque.Take the design of the enemies in Shadow of the Colossus; the player is tasked with defeating strange beings known as the Colossi, and with no other traditional enemies to fight, all of the focus of the title is placed on these creatures. Their appearance is jarring – almost all of them are giants, lumbering toward the player, eyes glowing a light shade of blue. They appear to be made of stone, and are covered in a dark fur. To defeat them, the player must climb onto the creature, find a weak point, and plunge their sword into it, which results in a thick, black oily substance shooting out of the creature.

The Colossi are strange creatures, but in a stroke of brilliance, developer Team Ico designed them to closely resemble animals from the natural world. The second Colossus, Quadratus, resembles a bull, and other Colossi resemble horses, birds, eels and lizards.

This means that despite their odd appearance, they are still relatable on some level, since they reflect creatures commonly seen in the natural world. There are Colossi that are humanoid in appearance, and although this breaks the rule of monsters adhering to a consistent scale, the effect is downplayed because the Colossi are unknown entities with no clear motivations. That they don’t exhibit any traits commonly associated with humans helps this cause, and the idea that the Colossi are meant to make the player character feel small is a stronger point to make in this instance (and when most of the rules are expertly implemented, it leaves room for the designer to break a rule or two if necessary). Complicating matters is that the player is guided by a disembodied voice named Dormin, who only has one known motivation – destroying the Colossi. The player is left to wonder if what they’re doing is right or wrong, whether or not Dormin is in fact the real monster of the story. The ending confirms this suspicion, putting an additional twist on the monsters of the game.

It would have been very easy to go overboard with the design of the Colossi, to make them overly grotesque or ridiculous in appearance. By keeping their image grounded in a natural design, the Colossi can still be effective monsters, even if they’re made of stone and bleed black oil.

Mouth Tentacles and Hand Worms – When Monster Design Goes Wrong

The monster design in Bayonetta is tonally inconsistent with the contemporary design of the game.

I didn’t initially set out to explain how to create a good monster, but instead try to figure out what went so wrong with the monster design in Bayonetta.

First, we need to take a step back – the below examples of monster design are ones that draw heavily off of Lovecraftian and Greek Mythology themes. That in itself isn’t an issue, but the issue is that the games designed around them are contemporary in aesthetic and tone. A title can feature monsters inspired by Lovecraft and still adhere to the six rules – Bloodborne, for all it’s faults, is a visually stunning game, and the monster design plays a big factor in that. With one exception, the God of War franchise features monsters taken directly from Greek Mythology, but are presented in a way that meshes with the contemporary design of the rest of the characters. Problems arise when developers and designers take their inspiration too far, and strip all contemporary elements out of their monster design, while keeping the rest of the game modern in both look and design.

That caveat aside, let’s look at two examples of monsters that push the envelope too far, and weaken what would otherwise be a strong game. Bayonetta gets a lot of flack, and most of it is underserved. Yes, the concept that Bayonetta’s suit is made out of her hair, and that she uses said hair in special attacks, thereby leaving her naked, is absurd. But the game is never shy about its use of sex appeal, and if that can be overlooked, players will find a game that plays remarkably well, doing nearly as good a job as DOOM did with combining the old and the new into something exciting. But all of this is undone and overshadowed by some truly awful monster design.

The moment that I realized developer PlatinumGames took their monster design too far was the boss battle with an entity named Iustitia.

There’s a lot to unpack here, and most of it is not good. The design of Iustitia relies so heavily on Lovecraftian themes that it forgets it’s in a contemporary title, and defies the most basic rule of monster design – that the monster resemble a human or natural form, so the audience can relate to it. I understand that Iustitia has a human face, but it has multiple human faces, all of which remain expressionless and motionless, except when they open to reveal tentacles that have smaller motionless faces at the end of them. It’s main form of attack is two spike-covered balls (seriously) that it slams on the ground, and the way the player defeats this giant flying orb of mouth tentacles is to punch it in the face, thereby exposing a tender part of the tentacle, and then sever it from the main body. After doing this the prerequisite three times, the boss is defeated by Bayonetta, who engages in a sexually-charged dance that allows her hair to form into a giant monster itself (which has a contemporary design), and crushes Iustitia until it is a floating, pulsating sphere of blood and broken bones, with one lone face remaining to talk to Bayonetta. Not only is this monster unrelatable, but the tone is off the mark – it’s difficult to go from sultry Bayonetta dance moves to throbbing bloody tentacle orb.

At this point, the motives of Iustitia, or whether its design taps into some phobia, no longer matter, because the player has been overwhelmed with too much too fast. It’s a disgusting battle against a disgusting monster in a game that relies heavily on sex appeal. In a way, the monster is effective, but not in the way PlatinumGames hoped – instead of solidifying itself as an amazing third-person brawler, the Bayonetta franchise seems to have come to an end, with a sequel appearing on the Wii U that featured more of the same, and lackluster sales. Part of that can be attributed to the lack of interest in the Wii U, but Bayonetta 2 came out when the Wii U still had some momentum going for it, and even then the title failed to resonate.

Which is a similar case to the critically panned final entry (for now) in the God of War series, God of War: Ascension. The fact that a God of War game is appearing in an article on how not to design monsters surprises me – I’ve played every single God of War title (even the handheld entries), and one of the many things they all have in common is great monster design. But then I got my hands on Ascension, and after experiencing the opening boss fight, I understood why the game failed to reach a wide audience.

As is customary with God of War games, Ascension opens up with a boss battle, which is often used to set the tone for the game and teach players the basic controls. In previous entries these boss battles were some of the most memorable moments of the franchise – the Hydra in the original God of War is an incredibly fun boss fight that lets the player know that protagonist Kratos is no average Spartan soldier. But in Ascension, the opening boss fight does too much too fast, overwhelming the player’s senses, and leaving little for the rest of the game to build off of.

The game begins with Kratos being captured by the Furies, who hunt and torture any who make an oath with a god and betray that oath. Kratos is sought after because the Furies believe he has betrayed Ares, and so they bring him to a place called the Prison of the Damned. But this isn’t just any old prison for the damned – the prison is made out of the remains of the Furies’ first victim, a giant named Aegaeon. Kratos initially escapes from the Furies, only for them to unleash insects from their skin. These insects burrow into what appears to be a dead part of Aegaeon, but instead a giant worm monster emerges from the deceased giant.

Immediately, the design of this monster does more to disgust the player than to motivate them to defeat it – it emerges from a hand with six fingers, and the imagery as it bursts out of that hand would make Georgia O’Keefe blush. Yes, the design of Aegaeon sticks closely to the source material, but it does so while also being violent and revolting, forcing the player to face nightmarish horrors before the tutorial has even begun. From there, the battle moves around the Prison of the Damned, and the scale is so large that at multiple points, the player loses sight of Kratos, a tiny blip at the bottom of a screen being dominated by this unrelatable beast.

Large scale boss fights are nothing new to God of War, but in previous entries these fights were saved for the late game, and were built up and framed as pivotal encounters. By the time Kratos finally gets to take on Cronos in God of War III, the tensions between Kratos and the Titans is at an all-time high, and despite the battle taking place on a grand scale, the player never loses focus of Kratos during the action.

None of that is present in the battle with Aegaeon. There is no history between Kratos and Aegaeon (remember, Ascension takes place before Kratos wages his war against the gods) or the Furies. Again, the player loses focus of Kratos at multiple points, simply because the action is too big. And that action occurring so close to the opening of the game also means the rest of the title suffers from pacing issues – after defeating such a large, menacing enemy, the player is then expected to feel a sense of dread and tension when encountering much smaller and weaker enemies. To top it off, the setting of the battle, the deceased body of Aegaeon, shares some unfortunate characteristics with Iustitia from Bayonetta. Instead of tentacles, Aegaeon has arms, lots of arms. According to the God of War Wiki, “The outline of Aegaeon in flashbacks depicts him as a giant with six arms with twelve smaller arms on his six arms.” Yes, the is in keeping with the design of the character from Greek Mythology, but it also means that the prison shoots out in a number of different directions, and the player can never get a sense of place or a true sense of the scope of the battle. And, of course, the rigid, frozen head of Aegaeon has a large structure coming out of its mouth, obscuring what little human elements there are to the creature. Eventually, that structure is removed and the head comes alive, only to feature a series of claws surrounding a mouth filled with rows of teeth.

Coincidentally, this is the only God of War game I have not completed.

Running Scared

It’s important when designing monsters to create ones that not only scare us, but compel us to defeat them. Titles such as Resident Evil 4 and Shadow of the Colossus do just that, by adhering to a set of rules that have worked for decades. It’s not hard to see why these two titles in particular are memorable, even though both have plenty of weaknesses in other areas. Their use of monster design carries them past those weaknesses into must-play territory.

Then there are games like Bayonetta and God of War: Ascension, which could have been just as memorable, but instead drop the ball at the most crucial moment. The monster design betrays the most basic rules, and in turn removes the player from the moment, disconnecting them from games that feature great gameplay and intriguing stories. Monsters should strike fear in us, they should make us recoil in horror, but above all monsters must be respected.

]]>http://www.theoryofgaming.com/scary-monsters-create/feed/04256The Weekly Fetch Quest – October 31, 2016http://www.theoryofgaming.com/weekly-fetch-quest-october-31-2016/
http://www.theoryofgaming.com/weekly-fetch-quest-october-31-2016/#respondMon, 31 Oct 2016 12:30:48 +0000http://www.theoryofgaming.com/?p=4251Welcome to Theory of Gaming’s Weekly Fetch Quest, in which we adventure out into the world searching for the week’s most important news, and gather it all in one place,..

]]>Welcome to Theory of Gaming’s Weekly Fetch Quest, in which we adventure out into the world searching for the week’s most important news, and gather it all in one place, for your reading pleasure (and unlike most adventurers, we’ll fetch these items for you free of charge).

Every Monday, we’ll post the top stories from the previous week relating to the world of video games, along with some insights into why these are the news stories you should be reading. The Weekly Fetch Quest promises to be a brief look at these events that will get you caught up in no time at all.

To see more content from our site, or to submit a news story you would like to see covered in the Weekly Fetch Quest, follow us through our social media pages (Facebook, Twitter, Google+) or contact us directly.

A late breaking news story leads this week’s column, as Electronic Arts (EA) has been accused of preventing players who have purchased games through their online service Origin from accessing those games. EA says the restrictions are in place for countries in which the United States government has placed sanctions against trade. The list includes: Cuba, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, and Ukraine (Crimea region). The story broke when players in Myanmar were unable to access their library of purchased games, and took their complaints to Reddit. The story gained traction, especially when it was revealed that US President Barack Obama lifted the trade sanctions against Myanmar earlier this month, making EA’s actions all the more perplexing. Although EA has responded that they are working to restore access to players in Myanmar, this should come has a stark warning for those who have taken advantage of digital distribution, and is yet another reminder that, more so than any point in the industry’s history, the future of the market is truly up in the air.

The ongoing battle between the Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) and leading video game publishers has intensified, with publishers (including Activision, Disney, EA and Take-Two) launching a site critical of the strike. According to their claims, the strike is a result of a lack of communication from SAG-AFTRA negotiators, and not a result of a disagreement from the negotiations. Video game publishers are quick to point out that only 25% of voice actors and motion capture artists are members of SAG-AFTRA, while the union hit back against the “deceptive” site. Regardless, it appears that something does indeed need to change – a recent story published on Kotaku noted that many voice actors are unaware of the project they are working as they are recording lines or providing motion capture work, a stunning lack of transparency. As we stated last week when this story broke, voice actors are a crucial component of video game development, and it’s disheartening to see such a rift between those who run the industry and the talent that works on them.

The nature of video games reviews has long been a controversial topic, one that prompted the creation of Theory of Gaming. Many gamers worry that reviews are “bought” by publishers, or are concerned that video game sites push reviewers to turn in their review too quickly, trading accuracy for page views. This issue is about to become even more complex – Bethesda Softworks, creators of The Elder Scrolls franchise and Fallout 4, and publisher of highly anticipated titles Dishonored 2 and Prey, have announced that they will no longer be sending reviewers advanced copies of games – the earliest a reviewer can obtain a copy of any Bethesda title is one day before release. This had led to an uproar amongst video game sites, with Rock Paper Shotgun labeling the move as “anti-consumerism.” Of course, the impact this will have on gamers and the industry at large remains to be seen, but Bethesda’s new policy is off to a rocky start – their latest release, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition, released with improved visuals but decreased audio quality, and the remastered release still features all of the same bugs and glitches as the original 2011 release. Instead of consumers learning of this through the review process, and possibly changing their minds on a day-one purchase, this news broke by fans who were understandably upset that the remastered version of a five-year-old title still suffered from game-breaking bugs, and somehow sounded worse in the process. At this point, we’re still waiting for Bethesda to make a game with a compelling story, and then we’ll move on to post-launch support and issues with review copies.

With so much attention being paid to virtual reality (VR), one story that has surprisingly flown a bit under the radar is a lawsuit from ZeniMax Media against Oculus CTO John Carmack. The lawsuit alleges that Carmack and a number of Oculus employees who previously worked at ZeniMax stole millions of dollars worth of trade secrets and trademarked code from ZeniMax, which was then used to create the popular VR headset, the Oculus Rift. The lawsuit has now extended to Samsung, who worked with Oculus when making their own VR headset, therefore possibly using ZeniMax’s source code and other assets. With so much fragmentation already in the video game industry, especially in the resurging VR market, lawsuits such as these could have tremendous impacts on the landscape of the industry. One such impact was the announcement by Bethesda at their E3 2016 press conference that DOOM and Fallout 4 would be coming to VR, but only on the HTC Vive, and would not appear on the Oculus Rift.

Responding to both negative reactions from investors and a seven percent drop in shares, Nintendo President Tatsumi Kimishima said he couldn’t understand the reaction to Nintendo’s next home console. The Nintendo Switch, a hybrid home and mobile console, is one of Nintendo’s biggest gambles yet, and with no new information coming until January 2017, such as price point and launch titles, it stands to reason that many investors might feel nervous about the ambitious project. From our viewpoint, the Switch has plenty of pros and cons, and giving our enduring love for all things Nintendo, we’ll be keeping a close eye on their latest. Whether that results in purchases or not remains to be seen.

If ever a news story captured the changing economics of the video game industry, it would be the breaking news that developer Respawn Entertainment would not be selling post-release content for their latest, Titanfall 2. Instead, Respawn has promised that all future DLC will be free of charge and available to all. This approach to DLC is one we’ve long asked the industry to reconsider, especially after Nintendo set the bar for money-to-value ratio with their superb post-launch support of Mario Kart 8. Hopefully Respawn’s latest is successful enough so this can, once again, be considered standard operating procedure.

It’s probably a bit dramatic to suggest that Nintendo’s future depends on the success of their next console, officially named the Nintendo Switch. By finally entering the mobile smartphone market, Nintendo is at least securing their future as a software developer, but after the failure of the Wii U, their future as a hardware developer is more in question. Which is why the Switch is such a bold move – in an attempt to stay relevant in the hardware market, they are combining two markets into one, the home and mobile console. The revelation was stunning – Nintendo may be struggling as of late in the home console space, but mobile gaming has long been dominated by the House of Mario. To see Nintendo attempt to merge both of these markets into one, in theory cutting their potential revenue streams in half, is the textbook definition of bold.

But what to make of the Nintendo Switch? Has Nintendo once again found a winning formula that will sell tens of millions of consoles, or are we looking at the Wii U 2? That remains to be seen, but it’s worth looking at the Switch as it stands today, as well as Nintendo’s Wii brand, to attempt to understand what direction the industry giant is heading in.

Wii Would Like to Play…

With on simple controller, Nintendo changed the way video games could be played, opening them up to a whole new audience.

Context is key, and to understand what Nintendo is attempting to accomplish with the Switch, it’s crucial to understand what made their homes consoles, the Wii and the Wii U, a resounding success and failure, respectively.

In hindsight, the success of the Wii is simple and obvious – Nintendo created a console that had a low initial cost, a strong roster of first and third party support, and an innovative vision that was immediately clear to both longtime gamers and a new, casual audience. Out of the three major seventh generation consoles, the Wii was the cheapest at launch at $249, a fact made even clearer when it launched just days after the Playstation 3, which infamously retailed for $599. Eventually, Wii owners would have to purchase more accessories (a time-honored Nintendo tradition that, sadly, isn’t going away anytime soon), but the initial cost for entry was low, especially considering that the console came with the title Wii Sports, which perfectly demonstrated the capabilities of the Wii.

In addition to a low price and plenty of games, the benefits of the new controller were immediately apparent. This cannot be overstated – the second you put a Wii remote in someone’s hand and booted up Wii Sports bowling, the concept clicked. Even better still was that the intimidation factor often experienced by casual gamers that are handed an Xbox or Playstation controller wasn’t present, yet the controller, in combination with the nunchuk accessory, allowed developers to create games just as complex as those seen on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.

These three crucial successes resulted in the Wii seeing the highest number of hardware sales for the seventh generation. While that is no easy feat and it should be celebrated, there were signs that Nintendo’s dominance wouldn’t last. The software attach rate, which measures how many pieces of software are sold for every single piece of hardware sold, was lower for the Wii than the Xbox 360, despite selling more units of hardware. Some analysts debate the significance of software attach rate to success, but it does show a decline in game sales for Nintendo’s console (the numbers are even more dismal when looking at third party titles only). This led to waning third party support in the later years of the console’s lifespan, a problem that would plague Nintendo’s next console, the Wii U.

…but Not With U

No one, not even Nintendo, could figure out how to effectively use the Wii U gamepad.

The failure of the Wii U is very unfortunate, but not that surprising in hindsight. Despite featuring some amazing games, and an interesting take on social media with Miiverse, the Wii U failed to resonate with gamers, either longtime or casual. This was due in large part to a higher cost for entry, lacking support from both Nintendo and third party developers, and a lack of clear and concise communication on the benefits of the system.

The Wii U was almost doomed from the start, simply because it was more expensive at launch than the Wii. Gamers could buy a basic version of the console for $299, which featured a measly 8 GBs of internal storage, or they could purchase the deluxe version for $349, which expanded the internal storage to 32 GBs (still a limiting number for today’s games) and also included the title Nintendo Land, which served as the Wii U’s version of Wii Sports. The deluxe version also included a sensor bar, which is necessary for any game that uses the Wii remote (the basic version did not include this). Both versions did not seem like much of a deal given the price, and Nintendo quickly lowered the price of the system and discontinued the basic version.

While those were two solid moves, it didn’t help that the Wii U has one of the weakest lineups of both first and third party games for any Nintendo console not named the Virtual Boy. To be clear, the titles that were released for the Wii U are incredible – Mario Kart 8 is arguably the best Mario Kart game, Super Mario Maker is an amazing concept (one I hope Nintendo continues with the Switch) and Super Smash Bros. Wii U is the best entry in the franchise since the Gamecube version. But beyond those titles, Nintendo did little to support the console – the two Mario games were well received by critics but didn’t land with the same impact as Super Mario Galaxy, and the only Legend of Zelda titles to release on the console (as of this writing) were HD remakes of Wind Waker and Twilight Princess. On top of that, there was no new Metroid game, leaving many to wonder if Nintendo simply gave up on the console the way that third party developers had.

What little third party support the Wii U had seemingly disappeared overnight. Publishers like Electronic Arts and Ubisoft spoke highly of the console before it released, but as soon as their first wave of titles underperformed, they halted nearly all development for the console. Even more shocking were titles such as Batman: Arkham Origins, which sold so poorly on the Wii U that publisher Warner Bros. decided to cancel the planned DLC, citing a lack of interest.

But the final nail in the coffin was that no one, not even Nintendo, quite knew how to market the benefits of the Wii U and its unique gamepad controller. This was the biggest reason the Wii succeeded, and it’s also the primary reason that the Wii U failed. Nintendo never could figure out how to sell gamers on the benefits of a touch-screen built into a controller, and showed a surprising lack of foresight by limiting the number of gamepads that could connect to each Wii U console to one. It also didn’t help that Nintendo’s efforts at making games centered around the gamepad weren’t always successful – for every game like Super Mario Maker, there were duds, such as Star Fox Zero. That no one could figure out how to use this unwieldy controller, which was the primary reason the console featured a higher price point, all but ensured that the Wii U was doomed to failure.

With this in mind, it becomes a bit easier to understand the bold moves Nintendo is making with the Switch – they want to continue to innovate, but at the same time they want to make a console that caters to more traditional gaming experiences, as well as third party developers. That might make Nintendo’s vision easier to see, but not necessarily easier to accept.

Conquering the World, on the Go

The list of third party developers pledging support of the Nintendo Switch is impressive, assuming they all deliver on their promise.

Although there are still many important questions that Nintendo hasn’t answered (such as price point), there are a few positives to take away from the initial announcement, ones that point to a vision in which there is no longer a gulf between home and mobile gaming, but they are one in the same.

After the hybrid nature of the console, the biggest takeaway is that Nintendo is aggressively pushing for strong third party support for the Switch. During the reveal trailer, footage of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and NBA 2K17 was shown running on the Switch hardware, although Nintendo later clarified that, at this time, neither of those two titles has been officially announced for the console. What they did announce, which is just as important (if not more so), is that the popular Unreal 4 engine will run on the Switch, meaning that third parties should have little problem porting their games to the Switch.

It’s clear that Nintendo realizes that the lack of third party support was one of the major downfalls of the Wii U, and is looking to ease the fears of gamers who are stuck with a $350 console that’s doing little more than collecting dust. The list of third party developers who have pledged support is impressive, but it comes with two catches – pledging support and actually delivering support are two different things (EA claimed that Battlefield 3 would appear on the Wii U, a claim that never materialized). Second, it’s encouraging to see publishers like Ubisoft and Activision listed as pledged supporters, but as was the case with the Wii, this could mean more shovelware instead of quality, AAA titles. That said, it is encouraging to see names such as Bethesda Softworks join the lineup, a developer that hasn’t ported any of their popular titles to a Nintendo console, and would be the last developer I can think of that would push half-baked quick cash-grabs onto Nintendo’s console.

Additionally, Nintendo also showed off plenty of highlights of upcoming first party games. There was, of course, the new Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, along with versions of Splatoon, Mario Kart and a new 3D Super Mario game. Hopefully these titles are just the beginning, and Nintendo backs up the Switch the same way it did the Wii.

Much like the Wii, and unlike the Wii U, Nintendo is doing a good job of communicating the benefits of a hybrid console. It’s a simple premise to explain to casual gamers, and also seems to provide the AAA titles commonly seen on other consoles. Some of Nintendo’s examples seem a little far-fetched (seriously, who gets invited to a rooftop party and thinks “I know – I’ll bring a video game!”) but I can already see improvements to what Nintendo was aiming for with the Wii U. I love using the Wii U gamepad as the primary screen while my wife watches TV, but the reliability of the gamepad’s connection to the console was shaky at best. I could be three feet away from the actual console, and the connection would stutter or lag to such a degree that games would become unplayable. Other times, I could be in an entirely different room and never experience a single glitch. With the Switch, there is no need to stream anything, as the console is built right into the screen. This removes the one frustration many had with the Wii U gamepad, while still keeping that functionality intact.

It’s also appealing to be able to take home console games on the go, even if that presents its own unique issues (more on that later). I’m not a big mobile gamer, but when I visit the in-laws for the holidays, I often bring my Vita with me, since everyone else goes to sleep at a reasonable time while I’m up all night. Now, I don’t have to settle for ports of Duke Nukem, I can actually kick back and enjoy some time in a game like Skyrim, a very enticing proposition. Another benefit to having mobile in mind – the Switch will use cartridges, similar to the 3DS. While this may initially seem like a step back, it’s actually an incredibly smart move – spinning a disc to read from means more moving pieces that generate heat and require more electricity. By using cartridges, Nintendo avoids those issues, and hopefully the result is a piece of reliable hardware that launches with few issues.

The hardware, specifically the controllers, is something that Nintendo should be commended for, at least when it comes to the home console unit. The return of the pro controller, which was an optional accessory for the Wii U, is a welcomed sight, since the controller adheres closely to the design of the Xbox One and Playstation 4 controller. This is another way in which Nintendo is easing the burden on third party developers who decide to port games to the Switch – they no longer have to account for a screen in the controller, or motion controls. With the Switch, Nintendo seems to be willing to finally admit that most games need something akin to the pro controller, and the experience of using the Switch at home looks as comfortable and natural as playing the Xbox One or Playstation 4. One could argue that the pro controller lacks the innovation commonly seen from Nintendo, and that the focus on the controller might lose casual fans, but it would be unreasonable to expect Nintendo, or anyone for that matter, to both radically innovate and attract millions of new gamers with each new console released. The Wii was the obvious exception to this, but the Wii U is the much more common result, and it’s encouraging to see Nintendo recognize this.

Everything Is Not in Its Right Place

Some of the scenarios Nintendo illustrated, such as using the mobile unit to play multiplayer games, look awkward and uncomfortable.

While the Switch looks great in concept, there are some troubling issues that arose during the reveal video, ones that give me pause – and I’ve owned almost every single Nintendo console ever released. If Nintendo was attempting to calm the fears of longtime fans who felt they got a raw deal with the Wii U, they didn’t quite accomplish that, and the unfortunate reality is that many of the aspects that make the console look promising also make it look like more of the same.

For instance, the use of cartridges is great for the mobile unit, but it means that for the first time since the Nintendo 64, Nintendo will release a home console that does not feature backwards compatibility. This is a huge loss, as backwards compatibility is crucial for the future of the industry, and Nintendo has, for a few generations now, often been the biggest supporter of the practice. I understand why the mobile unit can’t use discs, but imagine if Nintendo somehow figured out to include a disc drive in the docking station, a disc drive that, at the least, could play Wii U games (although, if I’m dreaming, might as well dream big and have it work with Wii U, Wii and Gamecube discs). The demand for the console would be through the roof, although this would also pose its own problems, mainly a communication issue. Nintendo would have to explain to gamers that only some games could be played on the go, while others could only be played at home, and after the confusion surrounding the Wii U, I can totally understand why Nintendo would opt to forego backwards compatibility altogether for this reason alone. It also seems that Nintendo is ready to put the Wii branding behind them, and while I applaud them looking forward, it seems to be coming at a high cost.

The desire to make the Switch a viable mobile experience presents another issue – the form factor of the mobile unit looks unwieldy and uncomfortable, especially when using the mobile unit to play multiplayer games. If the point of having a device that can play AAA home console games on the go is to, you know, play those games remotely, it stands to reason that gamers should expect the same level of quality in terms of video, sound and controller comfort. As it stands, it appears that the player will have to make some concessions when using the mobile unit, negating the whole point of it in the process.

This leads one to wonder – is the mobile aspect of the Switch actually a selling point? Although there are many clear benefits, there are two unanswered questions that could render the mobile unit useless – the weight of the console and the battery life. Since the size of the Switch’s mobile unit means players cannot fit it in their pocket, it means having to carry it around in a backpack or dedicated case. If the mobile unit is both unwieldy and heavy, no one will carry it around with them. And if the battery life of the Wii U gamepad is anything to go off of, I have little hopes for the battery of the Switch. I’m going to need some serious juice if I’m going to be playing Skyrim on my morning and evening commute, without having to run home and instantly throw the mobile unit back into the docking station.

But that leads to another concern – do I really want to play games like Skyrim while out of the house? It may seem like a dumb question because so many people seem to want that feature, but traditional home console experiences are ones that encourage players to get comfortable and settle in for a couple hours. Granted, not every home console game demands that much time, but this raises another issue – given the often graphic nature of most titles, is that something gamers should be playing while in the waiting room at the dentist? It’s not necessarily because they are graphic, but more that these games often challenge players to think critically and reflectively about issues such as violence, revenge and betrayal. Spec Ops: The Line seems like a perfect game to play remotely, since it’s short and can be played in thirty minute chunks, but it may lose much of its impact when played in a room with harsh florescent lights, uncomfortable seating and the sound of dental drills in the background. Not necessarily a conducive environment for contemplating the horrors of war.

Above all, what worries me the most about the Switch is the same thing that worries me about any hybrid – it ends up being a mediocre version of the two things it’s attempting to meld together. My biggest worry is that the Switch may be a under-powered home console and a bulky, awkward mobile one. It’s a tad concerning that so many of the design choices are geared toward the mobile experience – although the specs have not been released, Nintendo did confirm that it will use Nvidia developed components, suggesting that it won’t be as powerful as the current models of the Xbox One and Playstation 4, both of which will see upgraded versions on the market by the time the Switch is released. This could mean that, yet again, the home console aspect could miss out on current games. At the same time, it may be far more powerful than any mobile console ever released, including smartphones, but the form factor might prevent widespread adoption among mobile gaming enthusiasts. Again, the Switch finds itself in that awkward situation where many of the aspects that seem appealing also result in some of its more troubling issues.

Ready to Make the Switch?

The Nintendo Switch represents a big departure for Nintendo – they are ditching the Wii brand, and seemingly embracing the idea that it needs to feature much more traditional elements to stay competitive. This is positive, forward thinking that Nintendo should be applauded for, but it also calls into question some of the other design choices, such as the form factor for mobile play and the removal of backwards compatibility. As of now, I’m excited for the Switch, and fully intend on purchasing one, not on launch day, but before the year 2017 comes to a close. Of course, that could all change – Nintendo could still convince me that this is a day one purchase, or they could talk me out of it entirely. Regardless, it will be fascinating to see where Nintendo, one of the few true innovators left in an industry that desperately needs them, goes with their next offering.

]]>http://www.theoryofgaming.com/nintendo-switch-high-stakes-gamble/feed/04244The Weekly Fetch Quest – October 24, 2016http://www.theoryofgaming.com/weekly-fetch-quest-october-24-2016/
http://www.theoryofgaming.com/weekly-fetch-quest-october-24-2016/#respondMon, 24 Oct 2016 12:30:45 +0000http://www.theoryofgaming.com/?p=4238Welcome to Theory of Gaming’s Weekly Fetch Quest, in which we adventure out into the world searching for the week’s most important news, and gather it all in one place,..

]]>Welcome to Theory of Gaming’s Weekly Fetch Quest, in which we adventure out into the world searching for the week’s most important news, and gather it all in one place, for your reading pleasure (and unlike most adventurers, we’ll fetch these items for you free of charge).

Every Monday, we’ll post the top stories from the previous week relating to the world of video games, along with some insights into why these are the news stories you should be reading. The Weekly Fetch Quest promises to be a brief look at these events that will get you caught up in no time at all.

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After months of speculation and rumors, Nintendo has finally unveiled their next console, named the Nintendo Switch. The console is unique in that it is both a traditional home console and a mobile, handheld console. Players will be able to play games on their home TV, and can remove the console from a docking station to bring the game with them wherever they go. Although there are still many unanswered questions (price, specs, launch titles), we’re excited for the Switch for three reasons: the potential for asymmetrical gameplay, the possibility of unique non-traditional game design and, well, it’s Nintendo, and we’re endlessly loyal to them (even if they are prone to some questionable decision making).

After nearly two years of back-and-forth negotiations with numerous video game publishers and developers, including Electronic Arts and Activision (among many others), the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) has decided to go on strike. There are a number of issues at the center of the strike, but the primary concerns are a discrepancy in pay and unsafe working conditions. Voice actors feel their work is undervalued by the industry, and that many publishers push actors to work through long, sometimes unreasonable recording sessions, which can cause harm to the actor’s vocal chords. Although industry representatives labeled the strike as “self-defeating,” we can only hope for a swift resolution to this issue – after all, voice actors are essential components of great games.

Along with news of their next console, Nintendo also unveiled new details of the highly anticipated Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Nintendo demonstrated some new features, such as a dynamic weather system, and confirmed that the title would release on both the Wii U and Switch. It will be interesting to see if there are any differences between the two versions of the title, and if Nintendo can create a compelling open-world adventure, something they have limited experience with. Also interesting to note is that the title appears to abandon motion controls, a curious move since the last entry in the franchise helped set the standard for motion controls in games.

An unfortunate reminder that the video game industry is just that, an industry, came this week with the news that United Front Games would be closing down after nine years of developing original AAA titles, as well as supporting other developers on large AAA titles. The closure of yet another large development studio strengthens the argument that the current model of AAA game development is unsustainable, and that the industry needs to reexamine how video games are developed and published.

Outside of Japan, many gamers have never heard of The Legend of Zelda: Ancient Stone Tablets, a sort of remix of the popular Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. The obscurity of the title is, in large part, due to the unique nature of the game – according to Kotaku, the game faced an uphill battle in terms of emulation because “The game could only be played while it was being broadcast via satellite and changed over time. Audio broadcasts were played during the games, with orchestrated music and voice acting.” However, fans have found a workaround, and the title can now be downloaded and played by all. Not only is it a chance to experience a curious piece of Nintendo’s history, but it also shows how the company has long experimented with non-traditional game design.

]]>http://www.theoryofgaming.com/weekly-fetch-quest-october-24-2016/feed/04238Inventory Full: Avoiding Mechanical Filler – Part IIhttp://www.theoryofgaming.com/inventory-full-avoiding-mechanical-filler-part-ii/
http://www.theoryofgaming.com/inventory-full-avoiding-mechanical-filler-part-ii/#respondFri, 21 Oct 2016 12:30:30 +0000http://www.theoryofgaming.com/?p=4227This is the second in a two-part series on the use of filler in video game mechanics. To read part one, click here. In part one of this series, we..

]]>This is the second in a two-part series on the use of filler in video game mechanics. To read part one, click here.

No Man’s Sky is padded with so much mechanical filler that scenes like these are rarely witnessed.

In part one of this series, we examined exactly what mechanical filler is – how it differs from the type of filler game developers typically employ, and how even some of the best games rely on it a little too heavily. Inventory management, resource gathering and level design can all be altered in such a way that the player will have to spend more time contending with these mechanics than they typically would, not to fulfill some aspect of the developer’s vision of their title, but to artificially lengthen the total playtime. It’s necessary to address this trend in hopes that developers cease using the practices in modern games.

Defining mechanical filler is also necessary in order to best understand a title such as No Man’s Sky, a game that somehow manages to be both an enjoyable experience built upon a solid foundation, and one that relies on the three main pillars of mechanical filler, creating a frustrating, and at times, laborious experience.

Inventory Management – A One-Arm Juggling Act

The decision to have upgrades take up precious inventory space means players will always be fighting against a bloated system.

On the surface, No Man’s Sky appears to be part survival simulator, something that in the pre-release hype Hello Games mentioned on a number of occasions. Survival games derive a large part of their strategy from inventory management, so it stands to reason No Man’s Sky would emphasize it as well. In survival games, the tools and resources the player chooses to take or leave could mean the difference between success and failure. But No Man’s Sky is, as of this writing, missing a crucial piece of the survival genre – a place to store collected items. Right now, players have their exo suit and ship available for storage, but both are so highly restrictive that even players who have fully upgraded both will run out of space very quick.

But first, we need to take a step back and address the first issue with inventory management – navigating the menus and inventories is a slow, tedious exercise. Hello Games seemed to be more concerned on the aesthetics of the menus than their functionality, and liberally took inspiration from Destiny for their look and feel. Creating aesthetically pleasing menus isn’t a bad design choice, but it should never come at the expense of functionality. Moving items from one inventory screen to the next or combining stacks of items takes far more time than it should because there’s no easy way to navigate each menu – on the console version, the process is handled with the analog stick, a clumsy replacement for a mouse, and players slowly drag the cursor over the item they want to move and slowly drag it to the slot they want to store it.

This makes crafting items a time consuming chore, and the problem is exacerbated by a laundry list of resources needed to make most items, and the seemingly random rules governing how players stack similar items in their inventory. In No Man’s Sky, players collect many resources, from minerals to components, which are used to craft upgrades to their gear, or to refuel their life support system or their ship. Minerals are stackable, meaning that the player can have many units of plutonium that only take one up inventory space, but other items do not stack, such as fuel cells for the hyperdrive or Atlas Stones (an item that is needed to complete the only stated goal of No Man’s Sky: reaching the center of the galaxy). It takes five fuel cells to fully charge a ship’s hyperdrive, and if the player makes an effort to travel to the center of the galaxy, they will need far more than five to get there. This means players will have to continuously gather the resources to make those cells, and find space to store them until needed. Adding to the constraints of this system is the fact that any suit or ship upgrade the player wishes to add takes up one inventory space. So not only do many items not stack, but the amount of free spaces is severely limited because the ability to warp the furthest distance between points takes up three of the 48 possible ship inventory slots.

Ship inventory slots are crucial, since one inventory slot in a ship allows the player to stack more of one stackable item than their suit does. For example, if I need a lot of carbon, I can gather 1,000 units of it in a couple minutes. If I store that carbon in my suit, it takes up four inventory slots. But if I transfer it over to my ship, it only takes up two. The stacking limit is restrictive even in ships (some late-game upgrades take well over 500 units of a material to make, meaning that they’ll take up two ship inventory slots), let alone in the exo suit. These restrictions mean players cannot focus on more than one goal at a time without it being a burden on their inventory. Couple this with the obtuse menus, and you have a recipe for player frustration, one that contributed to a staggering decline in active players mere weeks after release.

The player’s inventory can fill up very quickly, and the above doesn’t even feature all of the possible tech upgrades.

Not only does this constant inventory management take players away from the real star of the show, exploring planets, but it doesn’t add anything to the survival element of the title, mostly because there isn’t one. Any system that is mandatory for survival, such as the life support system, can be recharged with elements commonly found on every planet. But even here players can’t catch a break, as these systems eat through resources at an alarming rate. So while players acquire the rare elements needed to build a better hyperdrive, they must also make room for common elements so they can keep playing the game. After a few hours of playtime, the situations in which the player truly feels like they are running low on resources to survive drops to almost zero, but the struggle to manage the inventory remains well past the 100 hour mark. Again, I’m not advocating that Hello Games removes all strategic choices from No Man’s Sky, but when even the simplest task requires players to struggle with their inventory, it turns every action into a mundane chore.

But let’s say a player has grinded their way through the upgrade process, and isn’t in any rush to reach the center of the galaxy. What else is there to do? Other than exploring, there’s crafting items to sell at space stations to earn some cash (which is important, especially if they want to purchase a new or better ship). Again, just like the survival aspects, Hello Games discussed the trading elements at length prior to release, yet crafting and selling items suffer from the same issues. For some reason, the game does not allow players to mass produce a single item, so if I have those 1,000 carbon units, and I want to turn them into something called suspension fluid, I have to create each suspension unit one at a time; since they don’t stack, I need to make as many as my inventory can hold, back out of that menu and open the trading menu, sell what I have, exit that menu, then return to my inventory to keep crafting. It’s very easy to obtain 1,000 carbon, which yields 20 suspension fluids, and selling suspension fluid at a high mark-up is a great way early on to earn a few extra credits. Assuming this is the only item in a player’s inventory other than suit and ship upgrades, and assuming both are fully upgraded, the player only has access to 20 inventory slots in their suit, and an additional 24 in their ship. It takes no time at all to fill both of those completely up, and if the player already happens to have some much needed items in their inventory while trying to craft and sell items, it leads to an unnecessarily prolonged sequence of menu hopping and moving items from one inventory slot to the next.

Earning money shouldn’t be a simple process, but it should be engaging. In No Man’s Sky, the inventory management system makes earning money laborious, and far from engaging, meaning many simply give up long before they have the resources to buy a better ship, or one that suits their tastes.

Resource Gathering – When Everything Breaks for No Reason

The constant need to recharge life support or repair a broken ship means players will always be engaging in resource gathering.

The grind to gather enough money just to buy a ship, something that seems fundamental to the game’s mechanics, is just one of many ways resource gathering in No Man’s Sky feels much more complex and time consuming than it needs to be. In short, there are no easy or compelling ways of obtaining any items. The tactics players use to gather elements, tech upgrades, ships or multi tools is all demonstrated within the tutorial section of the game, and it never changes, evolves or opens up new possibilities.

In a video titled “No Man’s Sky Critique (of the actual GAME),” posted to YouTube by August Keller on September 8, 2016, roughly one month after the title released, Keller remarks how unlike other titles that focus on exploration and resource gathering, No Man’s Sky gives players all of the necessary tools to accomplish both tasks immediately at the start, instead of slowly rolling them out to players as they progress.

This leads to a system of progression that remains stagnant for the entire experience – since no new tools are acquired, there are no new skills to learn, no new gameplay elements to master. So how did Hello Games attempt to keep players engaged after the first few hours? By employing mechanical filler in every aspect of resource gathering.

When it comes to buying ships, the ones available to the player for purchase are outrageously expensive. It takes players an inordinate amount of time to earn enough money to buy one, so instead many gamers look for an alternative method. In No Man’s Sky, that method involves finding crashed ships with more inventory slots, repairing them, and using that new ship until they find another crashed ship that has more inventory slots. This is the only way to increase storage space – it is impossible to purchase new inventory slots for the player’s current ship (something that can be done with the player’s exo suit inventory), meaning players are forced to upgrade the hard way.

Of course, this isn’t an oversight by the developer. No Man’s Sky is designed so that any crashed ship the player finds has anywhere from one less inventory slot than their current ship to one more inventory slot. If the player happens to like the look of their current ship, they have to hope that, once they repair enough ships to reach the maximum inventory, they find either a crashed ship or a ship for sale that features the same design as their previous ship, since they can only ever own one ship at a time. Since players use this method to avoid earning enough money to purchase a ship, it means they either have to keep grinding away at the crashed ship route even after they’ve repaired one with 48 inventory slots, or just make do with what they have.

To get an idea of how long of a grind this is, the starting ship starts out with 15 inventory slots, meaning players will need to find and repair at least 33 crashed ships (if they’re extremely lucky), one at a time, until they hit the maximum of 48 inventory slots. And yet, this method is still faster than earning enough money to just purchase one (although neither method is particularly engaging). It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that many players eventually get fed up with this bloated system of progression and stick with a ship that has a limited number of inventory slots.

Every other element of resource gathering is just as time consuming. The most common way of obtaining elements is shooting at large deposits of them with their multi tool; even when the multi tool is fully upgraded for mining speed and efficiency, it can still take upwards of five minutes just to mine a pillar of heridium, a common element needed in large quantities, depending on what players want to accomplish. It’s even worse than that in the early game – in the video uploaded by August Keller, he discusses the actual time it takes to mine even a simple iron deposit. By his measurements, players will spend eight seconds shooting a single rock. In order to repair the starting ship, players should plan to shoot a lot of rocks. This is how the game starts, and the only thing that changes about this mechanic is that the multi tool laser can break down rocks a tad faster.

With multiple systems requiring resources to charge them, from the player’s ability to move between planets, around a planet or to survive a harsh atmosphere, players spend a lot of time resource gathering. Everything from thruster jets, which allow the player to take off from a non-designated landing spot and require plutonium to function, to the life support system, which needs carbon, plutonium, thamium9 or power cells to function, everything in the game needs a resource to keep it charged and ready to use. Even though resources are plentiful, negating the survival aspect almost entirely, it does mean players will constantly stop whatever they’re doing to shoot rocks and plants, navigating an obtuse menu and constraining inventory, simply to recharge life support or hazard protection. If a player tries to gather the resources needed to make energy cells to power their ship toward the center of the galaxy, they will have to either sell or drop resources to free up inventory space, meaning players might spend time shooting iron deposits to recharge one system, only to dump them to gather more platinum, use that platinum for whatever purpose, and then gather iron deposits again.

The role of black holes is self-defeating – they attempt to speed up the time it takes to reach the center, but then force the player to repair broken tech, which means gathering more resources.

Fortunately, there is another option for reaching the center of the galaxy – players can track down black holes and use them to warp closer to the center. But there’s a problem with that system as well – every time the player uses a black hole, a random piece of technology on their ship breaks down, and it requires even more resources to repair. If the player is lucky, the technology that breaks will only require common elements, but that’s not always the case. So even when they player finds a faster path to the center, they have to stop to gather more resources.

Assuming the player stuck with the game up until this point, they will eventually reach the center, the goal of No Man’s Sky. But in order to actually warp to the center, the player needs ten Atlas Stones, a rare item players obtain from randomly occurring anomalies. The game helpfully sets players on “the path of the Atlas,” which means that once on the path, it’s simply a matter of warping to the ten solar systems that contain an anomaly that grant the player an Atlas Stone. Of course, this mechanic is padded as well – Atlas Stones do not stack, which means players will need to set aside ten inventory slots for Atlas Stones. If a player decides early in the game they’d rather have that inventory space available for the number of resources they need to upgrade their ship, they will most likely sell whatever Atlas Stones they collected. Which means, once the player warps to their tenth solar system with an Atlas Stone, they will no longer be able to follow the path of the Atlas to obtain more. So how do players obtain more stones? By purchasing them, and to no one’s surprise, the cost of Atlas Stones is ridiculously high when compared to other items. Buying a small stack of some of the rarest elements in No Man’s Sky will set the player back a couple hundred thousand credits – buying one Atlas Stone will set the player back nearly three million credits. To add insult to injury, when the player decides to sell an Atlas Stone, the amount they get for it can be measured in the tens of thousands.

There’s evidence to support that Hello Games saw these problems coming, and in the build-up they discussed how players could avoid resource gathering altogether by focusing solely on trading at space stations. Of course, this system is broken as well – players can purchase all of a specific element from one space station in one solar system, warp ten systems over to purchase more of that element, only to find that every space station in every solar system across every single galaxy shares the same inventory, meaning players cannot simply rely on trading to upgrade their ship or reach the center of the galaxy – they are forced into gathering resources, forced into using a system that is padded with mechanical filler.

Level Design – Traversing 18 Quintillion Barren Wastes

If the player wants to find any of these, they’ll need to do a lot of aimless wandering.

Let’s focus on those space stations where players attempt to conduct interstellar trade. These stations are huge, and it’s common to be able to see them in the night sky from a planet’s surface. The scale of these stations is in line with one of the game’s goals, which is to make the player feel small and insignificant. But much like the menus, Hello Games focused on style over practicality.

When docking with one of these stations, what sticks out to the player is not only how massive they are, but also how the interiors are designed in an awkward manner. Along with the player, many NPC ships also dock at the station, and it’s here the player can trade resources or purchase ships. But the docking area is so large players will often run toward a ship to trade with it, only to see that ship take off before they can reach it. I’ve run toward a ship to trade with it, watch it lift off into space, turn around and run back toward another ship to try and trade with it, only to see that one also take off. It’s difficult to trade when there is no one to trade with, and this is only an issue because of the unnecessary size of the interior of space stations.

Each station does have a terminal, located toward the back right of the landing area, where most players elect to do their trading. But even the design and layout of these areas is problematic. Players are seemingly encouraged to use a staircase to get to the second floor where the trading terminal is located, but this staircase is at the very back of the station, and for some reason it leads to an elevated walkway that doubles back toward the entrance to the trading terminal, which is not located at the rear of the station. Thankfully players can use their jetpack to simply boost up to the elevated walkway, and many players might not even realize that there is a staircase at the back of the station. Which begs the question – why is it there? And while this example is tiny and guilty of nit-picking, it’s the perfect metaphor for the rest of the bloated level design. As players navigate this universe, they constantly ask, “Why is this here?” and “”Why does this mechanic work like this?”

This confusing level design is felt everywhere, on every single planet, in every single galaxy. It’s not that the game world is too big – far from it. One of the joys I find when playing No Man’s Sky is to see just how far away planets are from each other, and the game does elicit a feeling of awe when you realize it’s going to take you two minutes to reach your destination when travelling near the speed of light. The size of each planet feels right – I can travel within a planet’s atmosphere in my ship effortlessly for thirty minutes, passing over a number of visually impressive formations, and realize I’ve only scratched the surface of what each planet has to offer in terms of scenic vistas and humbling moments of the vastness of space. But as soon as I step out of my ship to actually explore each planet, the illusion fades, and the filler rears its ugly head.

The issue arises from a peculiar design choice – when on foot, any undiscovered destination within a roughly two minute walk from the player will show up as a green circle with a question mark inside it, guiding the player to that point of interest. The problem is that the player will often run for two minutes toward this point of interest, only to find out it’s a standard beacon, and nothing more. Previews of earlier builds of No Man’s Sky indicated that these beacons played a greater significance than what they do in the final version – in their current form, they offer little more than a save point. This means players run blindly at green circles on their HUD until they find a point of interest that either has what they’re looking for, or more likely, doesn’t.

So how do players find those crashed ships, or the random drop pods that contain exo suit upgrades, or planetside trading posts? By visiting a special type of beacon called a signal scanner. These are small cubes that emit a pillar of orange light into the sky, and they can be located anywhere. Players can construct an item called a bypass chip, and use that chip at a signal scanner to search a larger radius around them for certain locales, such as shelters or transmissions. But in a pattern that seems all-too familiar by now, the four categories players can select from at signal scanners include a variety of locales, which means that if the player is searching specifically for drop pods, they need to scan for shelters, and not all shelters are drop pods. Finding a crashed ship is even more tedious – players must use the signal scanner to search for transmissions, which may (hopefully) point them to a transmission tower, and at the transmission tower they can solve a very basic puzzle which will then point them in the direction of the crashed ship. Remember – there is no guarantee the crashed ship will offer an increase in inventory size. Using these signal scanners is a must – in my 100-plus hours of playtime, I stumbled upon one crashed ship without the aide of a transmission tower.

Of course, once the player has brute-forced their way through the cumbersome level designs, and they are finally ready to reach the center of the galaxy, having stocked up on energy cells and Atlas Stones, they must first contend with the fact that Hello Games increased the size of each galaxy by ten-fold as part of their massive day-one patch. Keep in mind, they increased the size of galaxies, but did not increase the number of solar systems found within them. Since a fully upgraded hyperdrive can only move the player 1,700 linear light years toward the center of the galaxy, which for many is located roughly 180,000 linear light years away, players will need to break their ship crashing through black holes. Which means more tedious resource gathering, and managing those resources with a cumbersome inventory system.

Brevity is the Soul of Wit

It may seem hypocritical to criticize Hello Games for their use of filler in No Man’s Sky in a series of essays clocking in at well over 6,000 words, but that’s how serious of an issue mechanical filler is to video games. At Theory of Gaming we believe even great games can perpetuate bad ideas, and when it happens over a long enough period of time, talented developers start to believe these poor mechanics are actually great mechanics worth emulating in their own titles.

Hello Games took the three main aspects of mechanical filler used in critically acclaimed titles such as Red Dead Redemption and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and used them throughout every facet of gameplay. The unfortunate reality is it’s hard to blame them, but it’s also imperative we critique these decisions, dissect and analyze them, to overwhelmingly demonstrate how negative of an impact these mechanics have on game design.

There’s so much potential in No Man’s Sky, and despite what I’ve written here, a part of me still enjoys the title. But it could have been something more, something far greater than what fans received. With any luck, there will be a No Man’s Sky 2, and mechanical filler will be a distant memory in every virtual universe.